


my heart keeps beating like a hammer

by usoverlooked



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Kid Fic, Pyrrha-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 12:12:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10513539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usoverlooked/pseuds/usoverlooked
Summary: “Would I really use my baby as a matchmaking scheme?” Nora asks.“Nora, I love you, but yes, you would.” Pyrrha answers.(or also - Jaune and Pyrrha take care of a child and there are feelings.)





	

Pyrrha wakes up to find Nora in her living room. There was a time not that long ago that this would have resulted in a knife at Nora’s throat. It probably should not be considered growth that there isn’t one this time, but it is anyway. Nora seems to know it too, because her smile is hesitant.

“So Ren and I are supposed to go to Mistral for a few months.” Nora starts. She sips at a cup of tea, made from Pyrrha’s kitchen. There’s another cup on the coffee table and Pyrrha picks it up, cautious. Old habits die hard, especially when the old habits prevented her from getting killed. Nora takes the cup, drinks from it, then passes it back to Pyrrha. She does it like it is nothing, but Pyrrha’s grateful more than she can say.

“Are you asking me to come with you?” Pyrrha asks. She moves the spoon around the cup with her semblance. It comforts her oddly, to be able to do that. Nora shifts in her seat. They’re grown now, but Nora still seems to have an unending supply of energy.

“Not that. It’s more what to do with Jade.” Nora says. She smiles. “That’s where you come in.”

“Nora, I’m not good with kids.” Pyrrha says.

“Chicken Nugs loves you! And not just because you call her Jade and not any of her nicknames.” Nora says. Chicken Nugs is her favorite nickname for her daughter. Pyrrha would find it strange if it were anyone besides Nora. Ren usually calls her Jade too, but everyone else that Pyrrha knows has a nickname for her. The little girl is the first child for most of their group from Beacon, so everyone has a soft spot for her.

“I don’t know how to take care of a baby.” Pyrrha admits. But even to her own ears it sounds weaker. She realizes suddenly that she’s going to say yes. Saying no to anyone has always been hard for her, but with Nora it is even harder. After all they’ve gone through, it feels cruel to deny her friend.

“Well, she’s not a _baby_ -baby. Plus, we figured Jaune could help out.”

“Nora, c’mon.”

“What? You guys are the godparents.” Nora says. Pyrrha gives her a look. It’s not the first time Nora has tried something like this. Nora still looks affronted. “Would I really use my baby as a matchmaking scheme?”

“Nora, I love you, but yes, you would.” Pyrrha answers. Nora nods.

“Point. But I’m not doing that. It’s two months, it’s not that long. She’s two, she knows how to talk and everything.” Nora says. “What else would you be doing anyways?”

That’s as good a point as anything. Pyrrha looks around her tiny house, tries to figure out some answer. Training, technically, though she hasn’t used her semblance for much more than stirring metal spoons for almost three years, and she hasn’t practiced fighting in almost as long. Nora tilts her head.

“Pyr, I trust you. I wouldn’t let Jade around someone I didn’t. I really want to take this job, but if you really won’t do this, I can say no.” Nora says.

“Say yes.” Pyrrha says.

 

Pyrrha shoves her overnight bag back up onto her shoulder and stares up at the house. It’s not huge and there’s a painting of a flower on the door, but still. Something about it feels intimidatingly homey. So it takes her a moment to walk up the steps to the front door. Nora and Ren left in the morning, but Pyrrha’s train didn’t come in until after theirs left, so she knows that it’ll be Jaune on the other side of the door. That’s part of the reason she’s hesitant, though Jade doesn’t help matters.

After a few moments, Pyrrha knocks on the door. It takes almost a minute to open and she hears a squeal from Jade just before it does. Jaune nearly stumbles out onto the porch, one hand on the door, the other keeping Jade tossed over his shoulder. He’s midway through a laugh when his eyes land on Pyrrha and the laugh just falls from his face. Even after all this time, that stings.

“Hi,” he says, but it’s more of a question. Pyrrha’s hands go up to the strap of her bag. Jaune notices it and looks puzzled. “Are you - oh my god, Nora set this up.”

“She didn’t tell you.” Pyrrha realizes. Jaune sighs, shakes his head. He turns around, beckons her in with a hand.

Jade squeals when she sees Pyrrha actually come into the house, her tiny hands grabbing for her. Pyrrha smiles, holds out her hand for Jade to catch.

“Ra-ra!” Jade cheers. It’s almost enough to make up for the way Jaune seems to have deflated with her arrival.

Jaune sets Jade down on the couch and the little girl stumbles over to Pyrrha. Pyrrha crouches, nearly gets knocked over by the force of the hug.

“You’re strong like your mama, little one,” Pyrrha says to Jade. Jade giggles against her shoulder. Pyrrha glances up at Jaune and he looks like someone’s punched him. She’d know. She’d done it often enough, back when.

Something about the look scares Pyrrha off from Jade, like maybe Jaune thinks she’ll break her. So Pyrrha leans back, tucks Jade’s hair behind her ears.

“You still got that book for me to read you?”

“Yeah yeah!” Jade answers, grinning up at Pyrrha. She toddles off to get the books, hands tracing against the wall as she walks to her room.

“If you want me to go, I can leave after dinner.” Pyrrha tells Jaune. She tucks her hair behind her ears, then regrets it. It makes her look nervous and her being nervous makes Jaune feel guilty and she feels bad for that. Feeling bad makes her nervous again. It’s an endless cycle.

“No, no way. I could use the help. It’s just - surprising. To see you, I mean.” Jaune says. He shoves his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, leans back onto his heels. So he’s nervous too, she realizes. Good.

“Nora’s trying to get me to be a real person again, I think. Sorry you got caught up in it.” Pyrrha says. She tries to make it sound light or funny but Pyrrha’s not sure she’s been very good at either. Jaune shakes his head.

“You’re a real person. She probably just figures that Jade would be able to beat me up.” Jaune says. He smiles at a spot behind Pyrrha. “Would you beat me up Jade?”

“No!” Jade says. She sounds horrified at the possibility. That’s the Ren in her. Pyrrha’s surprised when the little girl tugs on her pant leg, pulls her to sit on the floor to read. Jade curls up in her lap, easy as anything. Pyrrha never knows what to do anymore with easy affection, what little of it she gets. It feels wrong, like Jade should know what she was. But Jade’s so little and so soft and Pyrrha just tucks her head against the girl’s and reads a story about a little princess who becomes a huntress.

Jaune’s eyes stay on her for too long, she can feel them, and then finally he settles onto the floor next to them. Pyrrha wonders if he was looking at her the way he usually does - like he’s terrified. It’s been almost five years since she died and he’s never stopped looking at her like that since then.

 

The afternoon goes well and all is truly fine until night rolls around. Jade is worn out enough and the novelty of having someone take care of her that isn’t her parents hasn’t worn off, so her bedtime is easy. She curls up and falls asleep quickly.

Pyrrha cleans up the dishes while Jaune putters around in the living room and it almost suffocates her for a moment, when she’s setting the last cup in on the drying rack. It feels so homey and in another life, in a better life, some part of her thinks _maybe_. She wipes her hands on the towel and steps out the backdoor to clear her head. There’s a pack of cigarettes in her overnight bag, but she’s trying to quit and it feels wrong to smoke here. But damn if she isn’t tempted.

Jaune joins her on the back porch after a few minutes. The air’s cold enough that Pyrrha was about to go in, but now she knows it would be awkward to do it. So she rubs her hands up and down her arms for warmth. She runs colder now in general, some result of whatever Cinder and the rest made her.

“So, there’s only one bed. I’ll take the couch and I know you’re going to try to be nice about it, but could you just let me do this?” Jaune says. He crosses his arms and he looks like he’s really geared up for Pyrrha to fight him on this. So she shrugs.

“Okay.”

“Wait, really?”

“Sure. You take it tonight, I’ll take it tomorrow. That’s fair.” Pyrrha says. He rolls his eyes like he’s going to argue that, but she touches his arm. “But for tonight it’s settled.”

“Alright, alright.” Jaune says genially. He nods up at the sky. “Pretty out there. I always forget how much less of it you see in the city.”

Pyrrha doesn’t live in the city. That many people makes her skin itch. Living out in the country is nice, gives her enough space for the truly bad days when getting out of her bedroom seems insurmountable. Still, there is something nice about the sky here, even if it might actually be the company she’s with for them.

“You used to make up stories for the stars. I’d never known anyone else who did that before.” Pyrrha says. Jaune startles at that, the surprise of it visible as it hits him. It makes Pyrrha want to shrink in on herself until he smiles.

“I didn’t know you remembered that. It was so soon after you came back, and you weren’t really…” Jaune trails off, the way he always does with the subject. Like it’s a sharp thing and he’s afraid he’ll cut one of them on it. It hurts anyway. He must see it somehow. “Well, you weren’t yourself. So I didn’t know you even heard me.”

Pyrrha swallows. She folds her arms over each other. “I heard you. It was nice.”

Neither of them say the rest of it. How she woke up some nights, still scared out of her mind of where she was and who she was, and how she could always find him by the fire, dark circles around his eyes, and a story ready for her until she fell back asleep. Pyrrha still isn’t sure how he was always awake for that, or when he slept. She’s scared to ask. Sometimes, before this moment actually, some part of her has worried that she imagined him there.

Pyrrha brushes past Jaune and heads into the house. She could stay out there, talk more, but it seems like too much. Instead, she washes her face and curls up in Nora and Ren’s bed. It smells of cedar and something floral and altogether it feels safe. Pyrrha drifts off easily, only aware of how very obviously the bed is made for two bodies when she wakes up in the morning.

 

It takes four whole days before Pyrrha has a nightmare. Most of the time she can go weeks without them, but travel exasperates the issue, so she had been wary that one might come. There’s something stupidly embarrassing about them, even though it’s beyond her control.

The nightmare starts the same way it always does, with her being pulled from the black, thick tar that makes the grimm. Pyrrha finds a mirror and when she looks at herself, she’s a Grimm, all black and white and blood-red eyes. She swipes at the mirror, shatters it into a million pieces, and then everything goes wrong. Her mothers run from her, she splits Penny into limbs, then Ruby, then Cinder, then Nora and then -

Thankfully, she wakes up. The room’s dark but she can make out the outline of Jaune in the doorway. Pyrrha fists the covers in her hands, tries to get her heartbeat somewhere in the realm of calm.

“Sorry, did I yell?” She asks. Her voice shakes as she speaks. Jaune hovers in the doorway a moment longer and then comes in. He sits on the bed, still far enough away that it feels safe. She pulls her legs up, away from him, under the covers anyway.

“No, no, you’re fine.” He says. There’s something he’s not saying, Pyrrha can sense that much. He hesitates and then with a sigh, lays flat on his back. His feet still hang over the side of the bed onto the ground and his body is crosswise to hers, their bodies making a capital L. It’s oddly charming and Pyrrha smiles in spite of it all.

“So how did you know?” Pyrrha asks. He spreads his arms out, the left one landing close enough for her to touch. Pyrrha stares at it, then follows his arm up to his face. She blushes when she sees him looking at her in the dark.

“Same way I always have.” He says. Pyrrha waits, figures he will explain that. His hand traces a pattern in the the bedspread. “I don’t know what it was, but ever since you came back, when you have a nightmare, I can tell.”

“Oh. Jaune, I’m so sorry.” Pyrrha tries to imagine it. She’s horrified that she’s somehow inflicted this on him. “How - do - do you have them at the same time?”

“No, no. Don’t apologize, jeez. I just usually wake up and feel kinda, I don’t know, off? Back when we were travelling, I figured out what it was pretty fast. You were having a lot of them back then.” Jaune says. His eyes study her face, something she can feel more than see in the dark. “You never mentioned it to anyone.”

“I didn’t want to bother anybody. I’m sorry I was still bothering you.” Pyrrha admits.

“You don’t have to apologize. Not for any of that.” Jaune’s voice is hard. It’s an argument they’ve had before and it always ends up here. His hand bridges the gap, covers the back of hers where it is still curled around the covers. “Would’ve dealt with way worse to have you back anyway.”

“How much worse than me almost killing you?” she asks. It’s sharp but when she meets his gaze, she’s the one to be taken aback.

“Jaune.” She admonishes. He can’t mean it. She won’t let him say it. Pyrrha turns her hand over to grip his.

“Yeah well, it never came to that.” Jaune tries. Pyrrha shakes her head and he laughs, the sound of it harsh. “C’mon, we both know you don’t actually want to have this conversation.”

“What conversation is that?”

“The one where you went up on that roof knowing you were going to die.”

They both go silent with it. Pyrrha takes her hand back, curls it into her chest. Jaune sighs. He sits up, rubs his hands against his knees.

“I wasn’t about to let people die.” Pyrrha says finally. Her voice is small, but it still feels momentous in the quiet.

“I know that. I’m not - nobody expected that of you. You just could’ve let us help you,” Jaune says.

Pyrrha looks up at him. He looks tired, tired to the bone, the way she is too, the way she can’t seem to shake. She wonders if they’d recognize themselves now, those kids at Beacon. Somehow she doubts it. The room feels heavy.

“We should sleep, Jade will be up early.” Pyrrha says.

“Pyrrha,” Jaune says and it sounds like a plea. “Let me help you.”

“I don’t know how.” Pyrrha admits. It feels close to a confession, like something wrought out of her.

It would be easier, so much less terrifying to pull away when Jaune moves across the bed. Pyrrha considers it for half a second, but she’s so tired and she’s been tired for so damn long. So she tucks her face into Jaune’s neck. The sob comes out of some deep part of her, and she’s surprised by it. Jaune just rubs circles into her back. It can’t be comfortable, hovering half over Pyrrha. She pulls back to tell him to lay down or sit next to her and there’s this look on his face. Like he’s trying to ready for whatever she’s going to say. Like she’s going to break his heart.

“Can you stay in here? For the night, at least,” Pyrrha says. Jaune relaxes, a full body thing that makes Pyrrha think he was expecting her to push him away at any moment. It makes her tongue feel heavy in her mouth, the realization that he was ready to leave if she asked, despite whatever he wanted. It’s almost as startling as the realization that he wants to stay.

“Of course.” Jaune says, as if it’s that easy between them. He moves to settle under the covers next to her.

For a few moments, it’s awkward. They’ve never really done this. Pyrrha moves slow, half afraid Jaune didn’t intend for this much. She curls up next to him, head next to his shoulder. If she were braver, she’d move closer. But this feels like enough.

“Not to ruin the moment, but I do talk in my sleep sometimes.” Jaune says.

Pyrrha smiles. “I know that. I did room with you at Beacon.”

“Hey, I could’ve changed since then. I’m way better than back when I was that kid.” Jaune turns onto his side to face her as he speaks. He feels impossibly close in the dark and Pyrrha freezes in it for a moment.

“What was so wrong with the kid at Beacon? I always liked him.” Pyrrha says. She did too, a fact most everyone except Jaune himself was aware of. Jaune doesn’t say anything for a long moment and she thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep. He always used to fall asleep easily.

“He wasn’t that bad, I guess, just never knew a good thing when it was right in front of his face.” Jaune says. Pyrrha chews the inside of her lip for a moment.

“Good night Jaune.” She says finally. It’s safe, if nothing else. Jaune smiles, just visible in the dark as she rolls onto her back.

“Night Pyrrha.”

It takes her some time to fall asleep. Jaune nods off quickly, breath evening out next to her. It means almost as much as anything else he’s said, that he trusts her enough to fall asleep next to her. She barely trusts herself to sleep with him here. Nothing’s gone wrong with her in so long and even when she’s had episodes of losing herself, it’s never been as bad as it was at first. But she still remembers, the godawful muscle memory of how to spin a knife, how to hold someone down. She remembers holding a knife to his throat and the whole damn fight - that thing they never talk about, how if it came down to Jaune or Pyrrha, they both know firsthand who he would pick. It seems unfair, somehow, that the universe let her have this, let her have his arm sleepily draped across her waist, when she was also that thing that almost killed him. But Pyrrha’s tired enough and the room feels enough like home that after some time, she does fall asleep. In the morning, she wakes up to Jaune’s face tucked under her arm, his arm still clutching her waist. Pyrrha stays in bed a few minutes longer. It feels safe.

 

Jade is a smart girl, Pyrrha realizes during the first week. She’s also cuddly, always wanting to be held or have arms or legs looped around someone. That’s a duty Pyrrha tries to pawn off on Jaune as often as she can. Both Jaune and Jade pick up on what she’s doing pretty fast though, and Jaune takes to busying himself with cleaning or cooking and Jade gets insistent that Pyrrha let her curl up while Pyrrha reads.

“Nugs, anybody ever tell you you’re real smart?” Jaune asks one evening over dinner. The little girl is moving her macaroni around to make some circular pattern on her plate before eating it. Jade grins.

“Mama does. Da says trouble,” she says proudly. Pyrrha’s struck again by how much she looks like her mother. The dark hair and eyes look like Ren, but the glint in her eye, the grin, that’s all Nora.

“You can be both. Just ask your mom.” Jaune points out. He catches Pyrrha’s eye to smile and something in her stomach flips at it.

Jade sings to them both after dinner while they do the dishes. She gets sleepy by the end of it, her song going to humming by the time Jaune’s put the last dish away.

“I wish mama and da came back someday.” Jade says when Pyrrha picks her up to put her to bed. Pyrrha smooths her hair down. The little girl tears up.

“They will. You’re not stuck with us forever.” She says. Jade tucks her head into Pyrrha’s neck, snuffles something. Pyrrha looks to Jaune for assistance. He puts a hand on Jade’s back.

“C’mon, kiddo, you really think they’d leave you with us forever? And ever and ever?”

“I’unno.”

“No way. Your mom and dad are gonna be back so soon.” Jaune says. He smiles a little. “You know they love you right?”

“Duh,” Jade huffs.

“Then they’ll be back. People always come back when they love someone. Sometimes they just have to go away too.” Jaune says. Pyrrha catches his eye and it’s a bad idea. He looks so damn earnest, even if it’s worn with years of trying so damn hard and still not succeeding.

“Promise?” Jade asks. She holds out a tiny pinkie. Jaune shakes it with his own.

“Promise,” he says.

 

The sun burns bright the next morning when Pyrrha wakes up. She pulls out her sneakers from her bag. The backdoor opens silently as she goes. Running used to be one of her favorites things. It always has grounded her in a way, the way her muscles burn and ache like she truly is still human. It was the first thing she did after they found her that made her feel like herself again.

Pyrrha starts the easy loop of the road from Ren and Nora’s neighborhood out to the forest. Nature feels more comfortable than people now. It’s been years, nearly a decade and some pieces of Pyrrha still feel like the thing that came down from Beacon.

It went like this - Pyrrha stopped being alive and then somehow, in some godforsaken way, Salem remade her. Except that Pyrrha, the one Salem made her, she was all grit and hard edges, with blood that ran Grimm-black when she was cut. Adam and Cinder trained her, took every already sharp piece of her and made it worse. They razed towns, a force that some still whispered about in fear. Then, Adam sent that ghost-ghoul-beast Pyrrha after the girl-kind-good Pyrrha’s friends.

It went badly.

So now Pyrrha runs. She runs and runs and then after she’s back she pricks her finger, watches the red blood swirl down the sink, reminds herself that she’s not that thing anymore. Running keeps her grounded.

 

They’ve been sharing the bed since that nightmare. It just seems easier. They’re adults, and it shouldn’t be some huge thing. But god, some part of Pyrrha is still that girl with a crush and she has to resist the urge to wear makeup to bed, even though she knows it’s ridiculous.

“So, I guess Nugs is going to be a wizard,” Jaune says as he settles into bed after reading Jade a bedtime story. Pyrrha’s got a book open on her lap, but it’s more pretense than anything, because Jaune always changes his shirt in the room and she needs something to look at. At least she doesn’t blush as much as she used to.

“I can’t believe you call her that.” Pyrrha says. Jaune snorts.

“Nora started it, it’s cute.” Jaune rolls onto his side, fiddles with his communicator. “Oh, hey, did you hear that Blake and Yang are going to adopt a couple little orphan kids? A sister and brother.”

“Good for them.” Pyrrha says, tone careful. She can feel Jaune’s eyes on her.

“Y’know neither of them blame you for working with Adam. You weren’t-”

“Jaune.” She bites the word out, a sharp thing. He stops.

“Well, it’s true. You weren’t _you_.” He declares after a moment. Pyrrha sighs and he kicks her ankle. “Hey, you can be wrong and not believe it, but I’m just going to keep telling you.”

Pyrrha smiles in spite of it. She still kicks him back, making him yelp. She manages to read a chapter before giving up and turning off the light. The room feels especially still in the dark.

“Tell me something.” Jaune says after a long moment. Pyrrha makes a questioning noise, a hum that she’s not sure anyone else would be able to interpret. Jaune gets it though. “C’mon, like a secret. Something not a lot of people know. We used to do this when we travelled, but you never played.”

“My secrets aren’t the fun kind.” Pyrrha says quietly.

“Neither are mine.” Jaune says, making it sound easy. “I used to watch that video you sent me to help me train. Like, every night. I don’t know if anyone ever knew. Sometimes I just watched it and didn’t even train, just watched you for a few minutes.”

He says it all in a rush and he says it like he’s trying to make it sound like nothing. But they both know it isn’t. And so she links her fingers through his under the covers. It’s too much and too little. Pyrrha can imagine him, just watching that stupid video where she was so damn obvious, her heart out on her sleeve the way it always was with him, just hoping that by some chance he’d see.

“Well the training explains why I didn’t actually murder you the first time you guys found me.” Pyrrha says after a long moment. Jaune laughs, it sounds like it was startled out of him.

“As usual, you saved my ass,” he says.

They lapse into silence. Pyrrha thinks maybe he will let her have this, let her get away without saying one in response. But that makes her feel like she needs to more. She’s Pyrrha Nikos, she doesn’t know how to just take without giving more and more back.

“I used to dream about killing you.” Pyrrha says. She runs her tongue over her lips. “Not everyone, just you. It was - I wanted that shield back so bad I could feel it. It was - I was so awful. It’s the first thing I remembered when I was _myself_ again and I just - god, I wish - I’m just so _sorry_.”

She still remembers how she had dreamed it, how satisfying she had thought it would be to kill him, to feel his blood drip between her fingers, to take that shield that felt like hers even when she herself didn’t. That’s too far and too much and Pyrrha bites her tongue to hold it back.

“If I had killed you, I don’t think I would’ve ever gone back to myself.” Pyrrha says as a finish. Jaune’s hand tightens around hers.

“No, don’t put that on me. You’re stronger than that.”

“You always underestimate yourself, Jaune. Your faith in me - your complete unwillingness to even _fight_ me… I don’t know what I would’ve done without that.” Pyrrha admits. She’s not good at this, at _needing_ people, but Jaune’s always been someone good at pushing past that for her.

“Guess we’ll never have to know.”

“Maybe.” Pyrrha says.

“Right, I forgot about the _very_ long-con, where they make you kill people five years later, after you’ve taken down half their organization. And beheaded the leader of the White Fang.” Jaune says. It’s sharp and Pyrrha turns to face him. He stares at her. “It’s not going to happen.”

“It could.” Pyrrha says. “Anything could happen. World could collapse tomorrow, I could turn out to be that thing again, deep down.”

“Nope.” Jaune says, just as sure. He shakes his head against the pillow. “I know what you are deep down, Pyrrha Nikos. It’s nothing bad.”

Pyrrha can’t find her voice to that. She turns onto her side.

“Tell me something good,” she says, quiet. Her thumb traces a pattern onto the center of his palm.

“So, when Ruby and Blake and Sun and Nora and Ren and I were all wandering the country, it was, uh, awkward. Because Ruby was kind of mad at Blake for Yang and Blake was definitely mad at herself, and Sun kept hitting on people in every town we stopped in, and I was being all try-hard as usual, and then poor Nora and Ren ended up back at the town where Ren’s family died.”

“This isn’t good so far.” Pyrrha says when he pauses. He smiles.

“Patience, Nikos. So we get snowed in at this tiny town and we’re all drinking rum and Nora just grabs me by the collar and puts her nose like - not kidding - a _hair_ away from my face and she goes ‘I’m gonna marry Ren. Because he’s the best person. And I’m not dumb. So shut up’. And then she leans away and chugs an entire bottle of beer.” Jaune smiles as he tells it and Pyrrha feels the corners of her mouth creep up too. She can picture it. He shakes his head as if he can’t believe the story himself. “The best part was Ren’s sitting next to her and she like - I mean it’s _Nora_ , so obviously she yelled it, and Ren just stands up and goes ‘You could’ve _told_ me’ and then he kissed her. And one of them proposed two weeks later.”

“Wait really? Way back then?”

“Oh yeah. They were engaged for like three years. It was ridiculous.” Jaune says. He shifts in the bed and one of his feet touches hers. Pyrrha wonders briefly if it’s childish that even just that makes her smile brighten.

“Your turn,” he says. He kicks his other foot at her, captures her foot between his. Pyrrha wonders for half a second what exactly they’re doing, other than playing with fire.

“So, when I came back, I didn’t really come back for a while. You know that. But I remember - we were camping out in the winter. And someone had made this huge snowman, like absolutely too tall. And I remember kind of coming back to myself as one of the arms fell off the snowman. So Yang tosses her arms up and goes ‘it’s a Snow-Yang’ and I that was one of the first times I smiled since I got back.” Pyrrha says. It was a good memory. She remembered too, the way Blake’s face had gone sort of twisted before Yang nudged her, earning a grin for it.

“What was the first time you smiled?” Jaune asks.

Pyrrha contemplates lying for a second. It would be easy. Or to pass on the question. She traces her free hand up his arm.

“You. You were laughing about something. It made me happy.” Pyrrha admits. She’s looking down, eyes stuck on her hand resting on his arm. It feels safer to do that, as the words sink in. It surprises her a little when he touches her chin, tilts it upwards.

There’s time enough for her to pull away. Maybe if she were wiser she would, or less selfish. Jaune gives her plenty of time, like somehow this isn’t what she wants. It is though. If she’s honest, this is what she’s wanted for a long while, which is exactly why she’s never given into it.

He kisses her gently, his chapped lips soft on hers. It’s oddly innocent for two people in bed together. Pyrrha pulls back, rests her forehead against his.

“What are we doing?” she whispers.

“If you have to ask, I must be doing it wrong,” he says, voice soft. He’s teasing but when she looks at him, Jaune’s face is so open she knows.

“We should go to bed. We’re just tired.” Pyrrha says finally. Jaune swallows, pulls his hand away from hers and she tamps down the desire to kiss him, to say never mind it all anyway.

“That’s not it.” He says. He kisses her forehead and then rolls over, disentangling their limbs from each other. “Good night, Pyrrha.”

Pyrrha stares at his back for a long time, fisting her hands in on themselves to resist reaching out. Eventually, his breathing steadies out beside her. She leans up to kiss the back of his neck, then turns around onto her other side. It takes a long time to fall asleep there, her back a sharp curve that makes her realize how often she and Jaune end up tangled together in sleep. Pyrrha wakes up late, to the sounds of Jade and Jaune in the kitchen. He smiles at her when she walks in and they both pretend the expression reaches his eyes.

 

The next night, Jaune hovers in the doorway of the living room as she drinks tea on the couch. Pyrrha watches him. This is always the issue with the two of them. It’s been nearly a year since she last saw him. That was at Sun’s wedding. It was a nice party, but so loud, and Pyrrha had slipped out of the reception to get fresh air.

She was smoking a cigarette when he walked up to her. There was a moment then when it seemed like he realized it might be weird to join her. They saw each other at gatherings like this, parties and weddings and nothing one-on-one. Nothing since all the rest of their friends started settling down, pairing off.

“Those things can kill you.” he said, conversational. Pyrrha sucked in on a cigarette, a long draw.

“They’ll have to get in line.” she said, an old line she stole from someone. It earned a grin anyway and Pyrrha smiled back.

They stood in silence after that for a while and it was fine. There must’ve been things they talked about eventually but for the most part, she just remembers standing next to him and feeling safe. She had wanted, inexplicably, to thank him for it as they left, but she couldn’t find the words.

It feels like that now, as she watches him fiddle with the hem of his shirt.

“Everything okay, Jaune?” she asks him. Jaune smiles like there’s a joke she’s missing, then he comes into the room. He sits on the couch next to her. For a moment, she just drinks her tea, aware he probably has something to say.

“Tell me something good.” Jaune says. Pyrrha sets her mug down on the coffee table, considers the question.

Things have been - relatively - good for Pyrrha recently. Working as a huntress had seemed like too much of a risk after everything. The town nearest her house has enough businesses that need accounting work done, so that keeps her busy and funded. Her mothers would always send her lien if she truly needed it too. The bad days have been waning, though they’re still there, more often than she cares to admit.

“My garden back home. It’s mostly vegetables, but there’s this one flower that keeps growing. I plucked it the first time, thought maybe it was a weed, but it came back. Here, look,” Pyrrha says. She pulls up her scroll, finds a picture of it. It’s a pretty red flower, with black at its center. Pyrrha scoots over on the couch to show Jaune. She leans in to do it, her hair falling onto his shoulder as she does. Pyrrha realizes then how close they are. Jaune says nothing, just looks at the picture.

“It’s a poppy,” he says. Pyrrha’s surprised and he shrugs. “Amelia’s a florist in Vale. Guess some of it rubbed off.”

“A poppy,” Pyrrha repeats. It sounds nice. She nudges Jaune with her shoulder. “Your turn.”

“Well, you might not remember, but today marks six years to the day when we went to that dance at Beacon,” Jaune says. Pyrrha smiles, remembering. It was a good day, one of her favorite memories.

“You wore a dress for me,” she says. It comes out softer than she means it to, and she sets her scroll on the coffee table, busying herself. When she looks over, Jaune’s watching her. She smiles, smooths her hands over her pant legs. “It was nice.”

“Well, I promised you I would. You know Nora gave me an earful about not asking you to the dance for like two weeks afterwards?” Jaune says. Pyrrha shakes her head at that. She had never known that but she’s not entirely surprised.

Jaune stands. He holds out a hand to her.

“One more dance? For old time’s sake.”

Pyrrha considers. It’s something more than a dance, she thinks. Or it could be. She could duck out, keep things simple. Instead, she takes his hand. Jaune leans back, clicks on the stereophone next to the couch. Some bluesy song plays. Their hands clasp, Jaune’s free hand going to her waist, hers going to his neck.

For a moment, they try at some actual attempt at dancing. Neither of them have much rhythm for it though. Pyrrha slides her hand from his grasp, moves it to his neck. They start to move in simple circles instead. It feels strangely intimate, just holding onto each other. She rests her head on his shoulder, breathes in the familiar scent of him.

“What the hell are we doing?” He asks as they finish another slow circle, his feet brushing hers. Pyrrha picks her head up off his shoulder.

“If you have to ask, we must be doing it wrong,” she answers.

It gets her a slow smile, the sort that reminds her of summer and those days when everything was settled. The White Fang had been dismantled, Salem was gone, Nora found a lake for them all to sit by and rest. Pyrrha had bug bites all the way up her arm but it was still some of the best days she can remember. She smiles now at the memory.

Even barefoot, Pyrrha is nearly as tall as him so she only has to tilt her head up to reach his lips. The hands at her waist tighten in the fabric of her shirt, and Pyrrha smooths her hand against the back of his neck, brushing the hair there down. The kiss is messy, his mouth opening against hers so easily, like he’s been waiting for this for so long. One hand slides up her back, anchors somewhere in her hair. Pyrrha traces her own hand up under the side of his shirt, finds the scar that she made there and draws her fingers along it. Jaune kisses desperate, like she’s going to pull away again and Pyrrha can’t guarantee she won’t. The two of them stumble until her back hits the wall. Jaune’s hands go to the hem of her shirt, then he pulls back, questioning.

“Bedroom,” she manages. Jaune nods, frantic. He draws her back to him, kissing her as he directs them both into the hallway.

Pyrrha holds his hand as they walk back to the bedroom, leading him. There was a myth about this, she thinks, and in it, looking back meant losing the one you love. So she just clutches onto his hand, drags him along with her. When she reaches the door, his body presses against hers. Jaune brushes hair away from her shoulder, then he follows the path of his hand with his lips. Pyrrha leans back against him, swallows.

It feels stupidly momentous when he shuts the bedroom door behind them, only the soft light of the bedside table illuminating them. Pyrrha hesitates briefly before tugging her shirt over her head. Jaune freezes, his hands hovering between them.

Pyrrha touches her hands to her hair, anxious to have something to do with them. She glances everywhere but Jaune and maybe that's what makes him move, because it is only a second later when he touches her chin with his hand. He kisses her more gently now, like it is something they've been doing for much longer than they actually have.

"I thought about this. A lot," Jaune admits. His hands trace her sides, a light touch. Her heart still taps double time at it, even something as simple as that. She loops her arms around his neck, pulls him back in to kiss him again.

"Kissing me?" she asks. She means it as a joke, a comment on the fact that this is just a kiss still, that he can back out. Jaune smiles as they pull apart, just far enough to catch air.

"That too. I spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about kissing you actually. The rest of it, well," he pauses to look her over. He slides her bra down, just far enough to expose her nipple. He runs his fingers over it, cupping her in his hand. "I really think you underestimate how many were thinking about that."

"I think most people think I'm too tall," Pyrrha tries to joke. Jaune looks at her, something too serious in his gaze. He leans down to kiss her neck, biting at it. It'll leave a mark. She bruises easily, something she wishes she knew another way. It makes the breath catch in her throat.

"You are not too anything, Pyrrha," he breathes the words into the crook of her neck as he unhooks her bra. He does it too deftly and for a moment, a stupid selfish moment, Pyrrha wonders how he's been practicing at that, how he's done it often enough to be good at it. Jaune's hands distract the thought as they touch her breasts.

"I thought about this too," Pyrrha admits. She pulls the ponytail holder from her hair, lets it fall around her shoulders. He watches her. It surprises her, how much she likes having his gaze on her.

"Did you?" He asks, clearly hinting for more information. Pyrrha nods, leans in to kiss him again. It shouldn't be so much, just his mouth on hers, but it is. His hands trace the bumps in her spine, then pull her flat against him, not even enough room to really breathe.

The sound of his belt buckle is absurdly loud in the quiet room. Pyrrha's hands flutter as she undoes it. He stops her then, steps back. Pyrrha tries to keep her face neutral, not too surprised or needy or anything.

"We can - it doesn't have to-" Jaune stammers, then stops. He shakes his head, laughs a little sound. He's nervous, Pyrrha realizes. His hands encircle her wrists, then slide up to her shoulders. "I want to take this slow. I want to take you apart."

Pyrrha thinks for a second of falling apart into dust, once, and then it passes. She leans in to kiss him again.

"Okay," she agrees, soft.

Jaune walks them both towards the bed. He keeps hands on her the whole time, like she might evaporate if he doesn't. He likes her waist, apparently, which surprises Pyrrha. There's this scar across it, a thick line that goes from belly button to her side, and he traces it, first with his hands, then with his mouth when she lays back on the bed.

Pyrrha lifts her hips to slide her pants off. They land somewhere on the floor with a quiet thud. Pyrrha has to resist the urge to crawl backwards, move away. This has always been the issue with her. She's tried hooking up and she can never fully shut her brain off. There's always some part of her, even during sex, that is looking for an escape route. Old habits, she guesses. She waits for that to kick in as Jaune touches her. For once, she just sees the room as it is. A man she trusts between her legs, the scar on her stomach bright in the pale light. The fear that usually catches in her throat doesn't come. It takes her a moment, but Jaune's clearly done this before and she's coming apart before long.

Jaune moves up to her soon after. He strokes her hair, brushes it back from her face. She leans up to kiss him and when they pull apart, he's smiling.

"You make the best sounds," he says. It's not smooth or a come on. It's almost earnest. Pyrrha rolls the two of them over.

It takes a moment to adjust, to fit their bodies together. Pyrrha rests her hands on his chest to settle. His hands trace her legs up to her hips. It's reverent, she realizes, finally placing how he touches her. Like she's something to be in awe of. The same way she's seen people touch works of art. It catches something in her and she begins to move with that thought.

Time seems to still or at least stretch. They fit together well. Her body has felt, at times, so foreign to her since everything. Here, now, it makes sense. It feels right to have him with her.

They both fall apart, not at the same time. She goes first, eyes shutting as his thumb rubs at her. He follows shortly after, when she leans in to kiss him again. For a few moments after, she lays there, on his chest, and just shuts her eyes. She can hear his heartbeat, steady and fast.

"We're good at that," Jaune says after some time. Pyrrha smiles against his chest. He laughs, clearly proud either of the sex or of the fact that she's smiling.

"We are," she agrees. Jaune traces a shape onto her back. She waits, then sits up. "I should shower before we sleep."

Jaune nods. She runs her hands over his chest, considers.

"You could also shower," Pyrrha says finally. It's probably silly that saying as much feels bold, all things considered, but it still does. Jaune grins, this bright look that she wants to bottle up to keep, and leans in to kiss her.

After their shower, Pyrrha pulls on his t-shirt and a pair of her pajama pants. Jaune watches her, expression hard to read in the dark. Pyrrha wonders passingly if she's overstepped with the t-shirt. But it smells like him and, well, she wanted to wear it. He curls up next to her when she gets in bed.

"I'll move," he says, softly. Pyrrha rolls over to look at him, confused. His face is turned down, carefully avoiding looking at her.

"I have enough space," she says. She's pretty sure that's not what he means, but she has no idea what else he could mean. Jaune shakes his head and looks up.

"I'll move to - to wherever you live. I don't even know where you live," he says. The last part he says so sadly. Pyrrha's heart sinks in her chest.

Pyrrha says nothing in response. Jaune nods, his Adam's apple bobbing as he does.

"Right," he says.

"Jaune," she tries, but there's really nothing to be said. He smiles but it's this awful false thing. She wonders if anyone has ever seen that smile and believed it. Some protective part of her is angry at anyone who hasn't seen through it, has let him get away with pretending like that. "It's just too much, you'd realize that as soon as you moved."

"What's too much?" he asks. He sits up in bed, clicks on the side lamp. Pyrrha scoots back, sits up as well.

"I don't have an easy life," she says slowly. She weighs the words as she says them, trying to make him see it. Jaune shakes his head.

"None of us do. Yang lost her arm, Blake's boyfriend was an abusive dick, Weiss's family cut her off, all of us have almost died who knows how many fucking times."

"But I did die," Pyrrha says. She realizes once it's out that she's yelled it. Her chest feels tight. "I died. No one wants to say it but I did. I should not be here."

Pyrrha stands. She crosses her arms tight over her waist, to stop them from shaking. As she walks towards the door, she realizes she's never said that out loud to anyone. The thought has echoed in her own mind so often but fear or shame has kept it from going farther.

Jaune beats her to the door, moving to stand in front of it. Pyrrha stops, plants her feet.

"You don't have to want me. You don't have to want me to move or anything but - you're not dead. Pyrrha, you have to know that," Jaune says. It sounds torn out of him, like it hurts him to have to say it. Pyrrha chews at her lip, shakes her head.

There's too much to say to it. Pyrrha wakes up some days and she can't get out of bed. She remembers the feel of killing someone. She remembers the feeling of nothingness, of ether, before Salem drew her back into being. She feels it all and some days it is entirely too much. Some days she wakes up and has to run ten miles, then clean her whole house, then go to town and work on balancing the books for the businesses there, one of her odd jobs, because it feels if she stops moving for a second the world will swallow her back up again. Some days, the whole world feels kind and good. Those happen more often as time goes on, but the other days happen so often too.

Pyrrha would not live like this if she could escape it. She can't damn Jaune to living it with her.

"Pyrrha," Jaune says, her name a plea. Some part of it must show on her face, the horror of it all. Her face crumples and she wishes she were tougher than this. Jaune reaches for her and she moves back. It's as if she slapped him, to look at his face. He covers for that quickly, schooling his expression into something neutral.

"I'll sleep on the couch," Pyrrha says. She looks at the floor. There's a beat, both of them waiting for the other to break.

"I will. You can take it tomorrow," Jaune's voice is clipped, guarded. Pyrrha hates it. Tears pool in her eyes. He kisses the crown of her head and she has to bite her lip to stop him from leaving the room.

The bed's still warm from their bodies when she crawls back into it. It takes her a long time to fall asleep.

 

The next morning, Jaune busies himself with cleaning around the house. Pyrrha spends the day with Jade. Jade babbles on, happy to have undivided attention. She falls asleep on Pyrrha eventually, her small body surprisingly heavy on Pyrrha's.

Jaune walks in to find them like that. His expression goes pained. Pyrrha realizes that she might not be the only one who had thought _maybe_ about a life like this for them. It aches to think that, to think of him hoping the same things as her. Pyrrha looks away from him.

"We should probably talk after we put her to bed," Jaune says. Pyrrha nods, keeps looking away.

Jade wakes up again when Pyrrha puts her to bed. It never fails to surprise Pyrrha, how quickly Jade is becoming her own person. Even just in staying here for the short time she has, she has seen it. Jade tries to convince Pyrrha to read one more story to her, uses a familiar expression that Pyrrha has seen Nora use for years to get out of having to wash dishes. So Pyrrha kisses Jade's head, tells her no. Jade frowns, looks like she might cry, but instead just flops down into her crib. Pyrrha stays in the doorway for a second, watches her eyes flutter shut. She always sleeps flat on her back, arms outstretched. It's a completely vulnerable position, save for Jade's tiny fists that curl at her sides and Pyrrha smiles at it. Somehow, Nora and Ren ended up the happiest of all of them. She's happy for them, if a bit jealous.

Jaune's sitting in the arm chair when she comes back out. He looks up and whatever farce he may have put up during the day is gone now. She's hurt him, the simple truth of it so evident.

"I can leave," Pyrrha says. Jaune just looks at her. Pyrrha hovers still for a moment, then goes to sit on the couch. "If that's what would be easiest for you, I'll leave."

"Can I ask you something?" Jaune says, as if she hasn't said anything at all. Pyrrha nods.

He swallows, then pauses. Pyrrha can see it, the way he's trying to get the question just right. It makes her want to reach over, comfort him. She's never bothered when he puts his foot in his mouth, knows his intent is always kind.

"Do you feel like you shouldn't be happy?" he asks finally. Pyrrha blinks at him. He takes this to mean she needs elaboration. "It just seems like whenever something good happens, you try to get away from it. Like, when Ruby bought that house and had everyone up for a weekend. You left on Saturday even though it seemed like you were having fun. Or when Nora and Ren got married and you left so early on, or when Nora had Nugs and you wouldn't go to the hospital to see them. Or like last night. It just seems-"

"I like being alone," Pyrrha interrupts, the words half-true. She's unnerved by how quickly Jaune's seen to the very core of her. She runs her hands over her thighs, tries to recenter herself. Jaune's eyes flit over her and she knows that he must know he's right.

"I'll leave in the morning," Pyrrha says. She folds her arms over herself. "There's really no need for us both to be here."

"You don't have to," Jaune says. Pyrrha looks at him. He seems deflated, like she's sucked some part of him out. The guilt washes over her.

"It's for the best, isn't it?"

"Stay," he says. It's harsh, like he has to reach deep into himself to get the word out. Pyrrha freezes with it. "I know you'll - you always avoid me even more after we've seen each other, and this time I know you'll probably disappear completely - don't give me that look, you know it's true - but give me the time here, however long it is until they get back. It can't be more than a week. Can you stand a week?"

Pyrrha listens. He's right. Whenever they all get together - and it's almost always all of them, or at least more than just the two of them - she then becomes a recluse for some time after. She hadn't realized anyone noticed. It makes her want, more than she knows she really should.

"Okay," she says. Jaune relaxes visibly, sinking into the chair. Pyrrha chews at her lip. "Do you want - we could go all in for a week."

Jaune looks at her. It takes a minute for him to figure it out. "You mean sex?"

She shrugs. It was what she meant. Jaune laughs, one sharp laugh.

"That's a really bad idea," he says. Pyrrha bristles. She blushes red, ashamed that she thought he'd want that. She stands, planning to go out back and just avoid him.

Jaune grabs her elbow, spins her. He looks at her, eyes settling on her mouth.

"I said it was a bad idea, I didn't say no," he says. Then he kisses her.

It probably is a bad idea, Pyrrha thinks. But he lifts her up. She wraps her legs around his waist easily and they stumble back to the bedroom. It's a bad idea she wants at least.

 

The next morning, Pyrrha wakes up before Jaune. She slips out, goes for a run. The sun just begins to break as she leaves the house. She runs and she lets her mind go to the past. Most days, she tries to avoid thinking of it, but with everything, she allows herself this.

The first few times she fought them, she was too quick for any real fight. A distraction, a way to slow them from reaching Salem or any of the rest. She broke Nora’s arm, snapped it over her leg. There was a burn on Ren’s wrist from a torch she’d dropped onto him. None of those were the worst one, though those came close. It was the last fight against them.

Pyrrha remembers it all. It runs across her eyelids when she tries to sleep, it hums deep in her bones when she stops moving, it slips in through the mist of the rain. That thing she was, those things she did.

None of it was her choice, nothing in her even understood choice until she was standing over Nora, ready to drive a sword in and Jaune stepped in her way. He fought well enough, but Pyrrha had always been stronger, better, and then there was none of the gentleness (weakness, some awful voice would hiss in her mind) to even the playing field.

“Pyrrha Nikos.” Jaune said, voice firm, as if those words should mean something to her. It was her name, she knew, but it meant nothing. Most of the White Fang called her other things. Everyone else only called her a monster.

They were both bleeding then. Her, with a scratch along her arm, leaking out that vile black blood. Jaune with split knuckles, his broken nose. He smiled and it angered her, the defiance in it.

“You don’t have to do this,” he pleaded. It confused her then, that he pleaded not for her not to do it - but something else.

“It’s my destiny,” she spat back as she moved in for another strike. Destiny. The whole idea of it is now ruined, but then it had felt so damn important and huge. Pyrrha hates them for that more than most of the rest. They had used her, she was more weapon than girl to them, but the way they took even that - even the idea of destiny - from her sticks deep in her bones.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Jaune answered. He was beaten. That’s the part no one seemed to understand later. That she had the sword at his throat when he said that. There was another part they all missed - he could’ve countered. She knew the move, it was easy. It also nearly certainly killed the other party. He’d made a choice then.

Jaune stood still then and Pyrrha stared at him for too long. She dropped her sword from his neck, dug it into his side instead. It wouldn’t kill him, she knew that even as she did it. It was the first time she had spared someone without being told explicitly to do so in a long time.

“Idiot.” She hissed before running away.

It was weeks before she found them again. Months of solitude, of trying to figure out why she hadn’t killed him, hadn’t killed the whole group of them. When she returned, her blood was finally running red again, whatever Salem had done to her finally cleared out of her system.

It was years ago, but Pyrrha carried those days in her more heavily than any of the days since. There were other worse things she had done maybe, but none that felt so against her very self as nearly killing her whole team.

 

Nora and Ren get back in the middle of the afternoon four days later. Ren has a sling on one arm. Nora grins and tosses her bags in Jaune’s general direction as she drops to her knees.

“Chicken Nugs,” she calls. Jade rounds the corner from her room at full speed, nearly topples Nora over as she reaches her mother. Pyrrha smiles at them both from the living room. She almost looks over to Jaune to exchange a look because he would know what she meant, but she quickly remembers that’s off-limits.

“House is still standing.” Ren observes, setting his own bag next to the door. He joins Nora, pulls his daughter into a one-armed hug. Nora kisses his temple before standing. Her hands go to her hips.

“See, it wasn’t so bad, was it?” She says. Pyrrha knows it must show, that something went wrong, because Nora’s expression falters. Nora deflates, eyes flitting over Jaune for a moment before landing on Pyrrha. And somehow, Pyrrha knows that Nora knows some of it.

“There’s a bus out to the town nearest me around dinner time. I should go pack up,” Pyrrha says.

“Oh, Pyr, it’s raining, you don’t need to leave today, do you?”

“I can leave,” Jaune says.

“No, I can go.” Pyrrha says.

She looks over at him and it’s a mistake. He wears his heart on his sleeve now, the hurt of it all so obvious on his face. Pyrrha knows that used to be something she did too. She lost that, years ago. It hurts to see it from him.

“Well, you can both leave if you’re going to be weird about it, geez,” Nora says, trying as ever to keep things light. She turns to pick up Jade. “Nugs doesn’t need four grown-ups bugging her, huh, kid?”

“No way.” Jade giggles.

So it’s decided. Pyrrha hugs Nora and Jade quickly, squeezes Ren’s shoulder, and heads back to toss her things into her duffel bag as quickly as possible.

 

 

Pyrrha decides to walk to the bus station. She leaves while Jaune’s still packing. It’s probably unfair to do, but Pyrrha’s always been selfish about him. This is no different. Ren says nothing about it, just hugs her, and Jade is oblivious to it all, just makes Pyrrha do some silly handshake with her before she goes. Nora gives Pyrrha a look, like maybe she’s going to push it. But Pyrrha just hugs her friend, practically runs out the door before Nora can say anything.

It’s raining, which feels almost horrifically fitting. Pyrrha makes it about half a block before footsteps come thundering after her. She assumes it is Nora, come to chew her out. When she turns, Jaune’s standing before her, shirt practically plastered to him from the rain. For a moment, they just stand there, as if both are shocked the other is there. Pyrrha clutches her umbrella to her shoulder to avoid doing something idiotic like reach for him.

“So that’s it then.” Jaune says finally. Pyrrha shrugs under her umbrella. Jaune scrubs a hand through his hair. “You just go back to wherever, and I go back to the city and nothing changes.”

Pyrrha nearly says she doesn’t know why it would. But that’s too far a lie. Instead, she moves to hold the umbrella out to him. Jaune steps back, denies her that.

“I don’t know what else to do.” Pyrrha says. The rain beats on her umbrella and Jaune must be soaked to the bone by now. He shows no sign of it, his gaze still steady on her. He motions wildly with his arms.

“We stop being so fucking miserable all the time. We move on and try to be _happy_.”

It’s a simple thing to say, but Jaune doesn’t say it like it is. He shouldn’t. God knows it wouldn’t be easy for either of them. Pyrrha’s grip tightens on the umbrella handle and something must show in her face because Jaune shakes his head. He laughs, a bitter sharp sound.

“This is ridiculous. Do you want to just be sad?”

“Are you so sure we’d make each other happy?” Pyrrha asks. Jaune flinches like she slapped him and that’s not how she intended it at all, but maybe it’s for the best. He looks away, finally, jaw working.

“Yes.” Jaune says finally. And he’s so damn brave about it, it tears at her. “If you’d let us, we would be happy.”

“Just - can’t you just be happy without me?”

“I’ve done that. I just want to be happy with you too.” Jaune says. He steps towards her, one hand touching her cheek, so damn gentle. Pyrrha shuts her eyes against it. “I tried, Pyrrha. I did, I swear, but I just miss you all the time and this is so damn _stupid_. Tell me that it’s not what you want and I’ll stop, but if this is some ridiculous guilt thing-”

“I don’t want this.” Pyrrha interrupts, voice small. It’s a lie and she can taste the bitterness of that. The hand drops from her face. Jaune’s mouth hangs open for a second before it snaps shut, his shoulders rising up to his ears.

“Alright, I’m sorry.” His voice goes hard and foreign. He nods once, steps back. “I won’t bother you anymore. Good-bye Pyrrha.”

Pyrrha can’t find her voice to say good-bye. He walks away, back to Nora and Ren’s. Pyrrha stands frozen, heart somewhere around her knees. It’s better this way, she reminds herself.

 

Her home feels empty when she returns to it. There’s milk curdled sour in the fridge, forgotten when she left. Her laundry basket sits full and even that is all just one load of bland colors. She remembers wearing gold and red, vaguely. The bug catcher out back still hums, flickers. Pyrrha curls up in her armchair with a book, tries to remember her usual life.

In the morning, Pyrrha wakes up early. The sun’s just began to peek above the mountain tops as Pyrrha leaves her house for a run. Pyrrha runs until her lungs ache. She ends up staying away from her home most of the day. Something about it feels incredibly empty now. When she gets back, the sun is beginning to set. She checks on her garden. Most of it has become overgrown in her absence. It’s a mass of green, all vegetables and their leaves. Then, she finds a spot of red. The poppy.

The color of it is a deep ruby red, lifting its face to the sky. She steps closer to it. It’s growing up in the cracks of her back porch sidewalk. By all accounts, it should not be growing, much less blooming so bright. Pyrrha runs her finger over the petals. Her eyes prick with tears.

Pyrrha rushes through a shower, then grabs her bag from where she left it by the door. The trains is thankfully running late when she gets to the station, so she catches the last one of the day. The towns blur by in the windows as they go. Pyrrha watches them until it gets dark, then watches her own reflection for a moment.

This is not something she is good at. Pyrrha was brave at one point in her life, but never about things like this. Wanting things, just for herself, feels so foreign. Pyrrha knows most of her friends don’t understand that, never have. They’re all bold - so open with what they want and who they want.

Pyrrha remembers the night Blake finally kissed Yang. By all logic, Pyrrha felt like Blake and her should’ve been closer friends then. Blake always looked at Yang back then like she was terrified of Yang, or maybe afraid of herself. Pyrrha recognized the look. Then, one night, after they had all fought off too many Grimm to count, Blake had this cut running the length of her face. It was bleeding, the way head wounds always bled too much, and Yang kept fussing at it as the two of them led the way back to their camp. She was trying not to, the same way she had always been trying to give Blake space in those days. Pyrrha watched them, keeping her own space from everyone. Then, she watched as Blake took Yang’s hand, just before Yang pulled it away. She had to stand on tiptoe to kiss her. Pyrrha felt an odd sense of pride at it.

Now, she wonders at it - how Blake finally got the courage to kiss her. It feels monumental.

The train arrives late enough that Pyrrha considers, briefly, just finding somewhere to stay for the night. But she thinks she might back out if she did that. So she soldiers on.

Jaune’s apartment building is easy enough to find. It’s not a bad neighborhood, but obviously one for someone who is on a budget. He teaches now, younger kids than they were at Beacon, and she can’t imagine that pays much. He loves the work, but she recalls him also saying he loves that he could live anywhere and do it. That was at Sun’s wedding and she’d carefully avoided his gaze as he said it.

Pyrrha reaches his apartment and freezes. She waits there for a second. She could still leave. They could both just move on or try to. Pyrrha imagines it, letting him go and find someone who isn’t only half put together like her. It might be for the best, she thinks. She also thinks that she couldn’t stand it.

She knocks. No one answers.

Maybe he can see her through the peephole, she realizes, and doesn’t want to answer. Her shoulders slump at the thought. Maybe she’s too late.

“Pyrrha,” Jaune’s voice breaks her from thoughts. She spins, finds him at the end of the hallway. He has his own duffel bag slung over his shoulder, apparently only just returning from Nora and Ren’s. Pyrrha just stares at him. He blinks in confusion. “You’re here?”

Pyrrha smiles. It takes a moment for him to smile back. He does though. By some miracle, Pyrrha thinks, he smiles back.

She’s not sure what to say. She’s never been good at this, admitting anything. Instead, she walks over to him. Jaune just smiles, looking half like he can’t quite believe it and half like this is somehow expected. She has no idea how she can read him that well, yet she can.

Pyrrha could say so many things. She has them all rattling around her mind, but none of them feel right. They all feel like something that requires him to say yes to her. She doesn’t want that, to force him into this.

“I thought I would know what to say when I got here,” she admits. It comes out watery. Jaune reaches out, runs his hands over her shoulders. She laughs. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “I like it.”

With that, Pyrrha can’t think of a single thing she wants to say. She just wants to kiss him. So she does.

His hands come up to cup her face and she fists her hands in his shirt. It’s a good kiss. There’s something unhurried about it, like they have all the time in the world to do this. Pyrrha pulls back for air, rests her forehead against his.

“I have this flower at my house. You should really see it,” she says. She pulls back. “That was what I was going to say, I think.”

“I’d like that,” Jaune says. He pulls her into his side.

“I’m not - I’m not all put together,” Pyrrha says. There’s more to it than just that - how someday she has fight to force herself to eat or do anything. The way she has to be alone some of the time just to be able to breathe. Pyrrha thinks he’ll understand it though. She lets herself hope that.

Jaune kisses her temple in answer. She tucks her head under his, smiles.

“Did you mean it, that you’d move?” she asks. She can feel him laugh.

“Yeah. Maybe that’s crazy. But I don’t even like this city and I do like you so,” Jaune shrugs around her. Pyrrha smiles into his chest.

“Guess you better pack then,” she says. She looks to him, finds him smiling. It’s bright but for once she doesn’t want to save the look for later. She actually believes she’ll see that smile later.

“Guess so,” he agrees. Then he leans in, kisses her again.

 

Four months later, Pyrrha wakes up to find Nora in her living room again. Jaune’s in their bedroom, still asleep. It’s been easier than Pyrrha expected, but still hard. Some days she still has to curl up in bed. Other days she walks to the nearby sunflower field to be alone for a while. He leaves his shoes out in the living room, she always forgets to wash her tea out of the mugs. But it’s been good. He makes her laugh. She gets to watch him walk down the road to the school for the town nearest them. He’s letting her put herself back together. She’s letting him help when he can.

Nora smirks. There was a time all of this would have been too much. Pyrrha can remember it, vaguely. She fixes the two of them cups of tea before even saying anything. Nora watches her, looking too pleased with herself.

“I’m a genius,” Nora says as Pyrrha hands her the tea. Pyrrha rolls her eyes at it, doesn’t bother to argue. Nora leans back in her seat. “So my daughter keeps asking when you two are coming back to see her.”

“Sometime soon. School just started back up, so we’ll have to wait for a break I think,” Pyrrha says. She spins the spoon with her semblance absently.

“I can’t believe it worked,” Nora says softly. Pyrrha ducks her head to hide her amusement at that. She actually isn’t that surprised. Nora’s smart, it makes sense that she would figure out what the two of them couldn’t on their own.

“So, you can totally say no to this. But there’s an opening for someone to do protective stuff out in this neck of the woods. Totally not a big thing, just an occasional thing of making sure no Grimm are busting in those woods out south of here,” Nora says. Pyrrha looks up at her. Nora shrugs. “I could put your name in the running for it. If you were interested.”

“I haven’t done anything like that in years,” Pyrrha admits. She’s surprised to realize that she wants to do it though. Nora nods, clearly thinking Pyrrha’s turning her down. Pyrrha shakes her head in response.

Nora cocks her head. “Don’t feel like you have to say yes. You can totally say no.”

“I’m saying yes,” Pyrrha says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> me to dicey: how do i describe this - sad boning and childcare?  
> dicey: make everyone think its a cute romcom so they're sad.
> 
> :)


End file.
